Moulded Polystyrene Workshop with Silo Studio

part of Make! A Season of Contemporary Craft

Experiment, play and learn using this innovative material in Silo Studio's hands-on crash course.

Polystyrene is traditionally treated as disposable product - the packaging around a TV or a take-away cup. Attua Aparicio Torinos and Oscar Lessing, the brains behind Silo Studio, decided to challenge this, taking polystyrene away from the world of disposables and showing it in a new light.

Not So Expanded Polystyrene (NSEPS) is the product of an innovate process through which polystyrene beads are steamed in fabric moulds, where they melt and fuse, distorting and creating unexpected shapes. The material behaves in a different way every time making each piece unique.

In these hands-on crash-courses you will meet the makers, learn about the NSEPS process and make your own object to take home.

About the makers

Silo Studiois the brainchild of Attua Aparicio Torinos and Oscar Lessing, who formed the partnership while studying Design Products at the Royal College of Art.

The core of Silo Studio’s practice is material innovation. They reconfigure industrial processes for their design practice, challenging the traditional use of materials. By adopting a hands-on approach, which they refer to as ‘Handmade hi-tech’, they aim to discover possibilities that the production line does not see, developing the expressive potential in industrial materials.

Discover

Watch: Silo Studios

Follow Oscar Wanless and Attua Aparicio into the studio as they use NSEPS (Not So Expanded Polystyrene) to create a coat rack.

How to: weaving with Christabel Balfour

In the first of our series of 'How to' workshops focussing on traditional crafts, tapestry weaver Christabel Balfour invites us in her South London studio for a weaving demonstration.

Budding crafter?

In partnership with

Barbican Shop

Location
Level G & -1,
Barbican Centre
Silk Street, London
EC2Y 8DS

Nearby public transport
We are within walking distance from a number of London Underground stations, the closest being Barbican, St Paul’s and Moorgate. The nearest train stations are Liverpool Street and Farringdon. Bus Route 153 runs directly past the Barbican along Chiswell Street

Car and bicycle parking
We have free bicycle spaces and paid car parking spaces available